Wolcott: GOP Co-opting the Pope

James Wolcott writes one of the most insightful pieces of media/political commentary you will read all year.

Fox New did all of us a service by providing a sneak preview of how the Pope's death will be politically spun to further a Culture of Life campaign intended to peel off more Democrats to the Republican side. Liberals shouldn't be lulled into letting down their guard after the poll numbers disapproving of Bush's and the Congress's barging into the Schiavo case. They're going to capitalize on the Pope's death and plug it into the Culture of Life crusade intended to save Tom DeLay's tainted bacon.

I would only add, in my own small way, that I picked up on it yesterday when I heard Limbaugh memorializing John Paul II, along with Reagan and Thatcher, as one of the holy trinity that defeated the Soviet Union. I kid you not.

Is anybody not a symbol for these people?